Tag Archives: qualifying for merit-based financial aid

Now that you have hopefully completed your FAFSA, within a week or two, you will receive an email from FAFSA which contains your Student Aid Report (SAR). This Report shows all the data you submitted, and also your Estimated Family Contribution (EFC). You should check all information to make sure it is correct and makes [...]

Seniors should (hopefully) be wrapping up their college applications around now, or in the next few weeks. Completing those college applications is a huge relief and definitely a time to pat yourself on the back and take a breather. If you are thinking about applying for outside scholarships, you need to start thinking about that [...]

Normally, I like to write my own material, but this article and accompanying video are just great. They show, in very simple terms, how to calculate your family’s EFC (Estimated Family Contribution). This is the amount that parents will be expected to come up with to pay for college. This article will give you a [...]

Seniors are hard at work on their college applications and may even be starting to submit a few. Yeah! As you are working on these, though, make sure you have a list of about 10 schools that fit into the different categories: Target, Reach and Likely (otherwise known as Safety). Ideally you should have about [...]

As seniors are finalizing their college lists and starting their applications, this is the question in many students’ minds. State schools seem like they are more reasonably priced on the surface. But then you hear about all these big scholarships at private schools. So which one is really a better bargain? Let’s look at some [...]

The fall of senior is an extremely busy time. College applications are a lot of work, plus seniors are worried about keeping up their grades. Here are a few simple suggestions for how to improve your college applications and your chances of acceptance. Study, study, study. I know, this is not the sexiest advice, but [...]

In my previous post about Need-Based Aid, you saw that Need-Based Aid is based on quantifiable data. Your “demonstrated need” can be determined by finding out your family’s EFC (Estimated Family Contribution) using the FAFSA. Knowing for certain whether your family will qualify for Merit-Based Aid, however, is a little like trying to pick up [...]

Blog Authors

Lili Chamberlain

Lili Chamberlain is the director of Compass College Advising in Dartmouth. She has been an educator and advocate for education on the SouthCoast since 1986. Her goal is to educate families about how to make a college education affordable. Her son is ... Read Full